Marching Bands, Twilight, North Pole and Lights...

Thursday night we went to the Christmas Parade. I went down at 4:30 and sat in the chairs that mom set out earlier that morning while she took L.J. home for dinner and a bath. Then they (along with Jay) came back to watch the parade. L.J.'s favorite part was the marching bands. Every time one would pass he would stand up and dance. I tried to get it on video, but he always stopped when I turned on the camera. He also got the obligatory cotton candy, glow necklace and light saber.


Friday night Mom, Cheryl, Christy and I all went to see Twilight finally. I went in with low expectations because of the reviews I had heard, but I actually really enjoyed it. Edward was a little weird with the whole not blinking eye thing, but overall I liked it and can't wait for the next three!



Saturday we let the boys play around at mom's house (with water buckets and balloons) for a while before heading to Parrish to the North Pole Express train ride. It started out with L.J. laying in mom's lap on the whole ride down so I knew he didn't feel good. We got off the train, made reindeer food (oatmeal and glitter), he played in the little building area for a bit, we had cookies and hot cocoa by the fire pits and then we went to stand in line for Santa. It started sprinkling at first which was fine...then it downpoured. Jay stayed in the line while the rest of us ran for cover. Eventually L.J. and I joined him since the line shrunk tremendously. We were about 5 or 6 people from seeing Santa when L.J. got in trouble for hitting people with his glow stick and had a meltdown. We ended up back on the train until it took off. It was a bad end to the night. We did enjoy one rousing round of "The 12 Days of Christmas" on the ride back though. Carolers came into our train car and assigned each row a different line and we all went through the whole song. Fun!

TRAIN RIDE PICS


Sunday was Dave's birthday so we went to lunch with them at Red Lobster. L.J. then went back to their house for a while and Jay and I got some Christmas shopping done and bought the tree. That night we met them at the Lights of Lakeland display. L.J. was truly fascinated by the singers this year. He stood forever watching them until we finally convinced him there were other things to see...such as...Blue, Barney, The Grinch, Gingerbread Men, Snow White and all the animals in the "Bethlehem" setting.

LIGHTS OF LAKELAND PICS


and a few new layouts...